Question About Depression From Blog Reader

Can I ask if depression was part of Gregorys realm early on when he understood what he was facing? Depression has been a huge barrier for A. He's on medication and we have a new psychotherapist and with the weather improving exercise will be a help. I'm just wondering if you have any other ideas on how to keep spirits lifted and positive.

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Gregory was somewhat lucky in that the Alzheimer's provided a barrier between the disease and his understanding of what was happening to him. Greg has always been a calm, easy going, relaxed, positive person so I think that helped. Friends would ask how things were going and Gregory would reply, "It has been going very well." I, on the other hand, knew that things were getting worse. Gregory just didn't see or know. At times he was aware of his losses but he knew he could trust me, I never made him feel "less than" or diminished and I always kept upbeat, optimistic, and hopeful in front of him. I learned how to cry myself to sleep without waking him. I also couldn't really discuss the changes with him because he was not aware of them and I did not want to burden him with my dealings. That is when I turned to the computer to process, get closure, write about what I was feeling. I would recommend more attention to DRUGS and making sure you get the best balance. They have helped Gregory at Lieberman when he became frustrated, angry, and resistive again. Getting the right balance was difficult, between drugged and sleepy and alert and present, but they are doing really well now. The staff keeps an eye on that with me. I worked very hard at trying to keep our life and our home as "normal" as possible and that meant changing, redefining, revising, and keeping on keeping on no matter how down I might have felt inside. We went out to eat, to the show, to the opera, hosted parties, socialized ... with me continuing to increase my role in helping him be successful in those situations. Hope my talking "around" the topic has helped.

Lie Down and Die or Hunker Down and Keep Living

"Lie Down and Die or Hunker Down and Keep Living." That is a saying that Gregory and I adopted early after his diagnosis with Alzheimer's some 11 years ago. Now it is time for me to renew that saying for myself as Gregory no longer has this fight. He is content. I hope he can continue to be so.

When I am with him at Lieberman, if I think about the man Gregory used to be as recently as last Christmas, or if I think about Gregory while I am at home and compare that to the man he used to be as recently as last Christmas, or if I spend too much time thinking about what our relationship had been like over most of the last 39 years, or if I by chance catch a photograph of our earlier days; I might as well stop writing this post and sob and scream and dash my body against the walls and  throw myself into bed depressed not to emerge for days or weeks, if ever.

Maybe some day I will be able to think more about Gregory and my past, and revel in the memories of our beautiful time together. But for now I need to focus on the here and now, as Gregory seems to be able to do, and enjoy our beautiful time together now, today, here and now.

It is not easy seeing him in his wheel chair: immobile, unable to toilet himself, unable to feed himself, now and then tremoring, needing to concentrate on how to get the water through a straw or bite a piece of sandwich, not being able to use words to share his thoughts, crying unexpectedly, so focused on some far off object or through that even I cannot get a response; all this surrounded by 70 to 100 year olds who are worst off than Gregory and sometimes in the midst of their cries and shouts and anger and confusion and shit smells and food messes clinging to the napkin tucked around their neck.

But what I am able to see, so this is what I focus on, is a community in which Gregory feels safe, loved, taken care of, provided for, having limited wants and needs. Gregory is past the point of clinging to fears, unnecessary expectations, the past or future, holding on to the need for "things."

What I am able to experience is how he brightens up when he sees me or a visitor, how he is able to smile and tell me he loves me, how he tells Pat, "You are beautiful." or Cheryl, "Oh, it is you!" or Jan, "Oh wonderful." or me when at dinner I told him I needed to talk to the Social Worker and that I would be right back, "Oh that would be lovely."

I look forward to his hugs and with some delay in sound his large smacks of a kiss on my cheek. We can hold hands for hours and watch "South Pacific" over and over again on the TV in his room. I can offer him a piece of chocolate or a cookie and he is delighted. I can take my leave telling him I will see him tomorrow and he will acknowledge with an, "OK."

For now this is all I need and I relish each moment because I know that even these minimal interactions will disappear. But what I can hold onto is our love for each other, maybe at a later date our memories, and to the knowledge that all of his needs are being beautifully taken care of by a huge team of people who care. While Gregory's illness has gotten worse, his situation has gotten better!

A Guidance System

Emotions are your guidance system, not the cause your problems. Emotions are the response to what is happening in your life. They are an indication of what you are experiencing. Like a thermometer tells you the temperature in a room, your emotions tell you about the state of your life. Therefore, emotions are a good thing that can guide you to making your life what you want it to be.

Usually one hears about guidance systems when referring to airplanes or missiles. With airplanes, the guidance system helps make sure you will safely reach your vacation destination. In shooting a missile, the guidance system helps make sure the missile hits its destination doing the desired damage.

With emotions, the guidance system tells you whether what you are experiencing is making you happy or sad, is right or wrong, is good or bad. So if you are angry or depressed or sad, that is not the problem. That is the measure of your problem. 

To make changes, you must dig deeper than your emotions (or maybe you already have) to find the cause of your anger, your depression, your sadness. It is easy to say, "I am depressed" and to leave it there, being depressed. It is as if labeling the emotion is enough. However, when used as a guidance system, your emotions help you to be armed with a better understanding of the current state of affairs of your life and you can begin to deal with the cause, to correct it if you can. 

As you make these changes, you will feel your emotional barometer change. Most situations can be changed, if not by yourself then with the help of a family member, a friend, or a trained professional. In those situations that cannot be changed, your thinking can be. While it may seem difficult to impossible, one does have that choice and that ability. 

I believe that each one of us is creating for ourselves a life that reflects how we think about things, how we see things, whether we are optimistic or pessimistic. We must remember that our emotions are only the measure your life not the cause. 

If your emotions are telling you that you are happy and that your life is good, keep up the good work. If your emotions are telling you that you are sad, unhappy, lonely, frightened, depressed, etc, then think about how to begin the process of change.

On a day to day basis, you can alter your emotions by how you think about things. If the person in line at the grocery store in front of you is giving the checker a hard time and holding up the line, it is not necessarily about you and your anger at having to wait or your disgust with the woman's rudeness.

Maybe the person can barely afford her groceries, maybe her husband is dying of cancer, maybe she just got a call that her child was in trouble again at school. If you can begin to look at the "maybes," chances are you will not be as angry with this stranger who is holding up the line as you were. Often, a person's problems are invisible, so don't take them for granted.

Even with something as severe as the diagnosis of an incurable disease; a person can change their thinking. He can spend all the time left being depressed, down, and sad or he can make the best of the time left, do those things he has been postponing, make sure he tells those who matter that he loves them, look at those parts of his life for which he should be grateful. He can live life as well as he can, while he can.

While some sayings are trite, like ...  you can change if you want to, it is all in how you think about it, if you change your attitude you can change your life  ...  they are true. Try it, you'll be surprised.

Never Better

In a previous post, I talked about a down and out, alcoholic dishwasher that worked temporarily at Jerome's Restaurant (no longer open) some thirty years or so ago when I waited tables and tended bar, who when asked on arriving for my shift, "How are you doing?" always replied, "Never better!." Now that is optimism.

In a previous post, I may have talked about a call Gregory received from his mother (now deceased) asking, "What is the definition of an optimist?" with the answer "An eighty year old couple who are building a new house!" as a way of announcing their move back to Goshen, Indiana from Florida and buying a house that was newly under construction.

An update on this matter of optimism comes at a meeting Gregory and I had with our lawyer to bring up to date our five year old trust, wills, powers of attorney etc; when Gregory brought Janna up to date on his situation by saying, "You know ... this Alzheimer's thing ... It isn't ... causing ... really any problems."

Bless the Dementia Buffer!

Negative Thoughts

Life seems a facade.

Truth hidden and frail.

Each day more sadness 

Covered by my smiling veil.

What of optimism

Or of thoughts attracting thought?

Might it  be just a sham of hope 

That really serves for naught?

Even Love is not as strong

A cure-all as it used to be.

I wake with the sun, and begin again

Despair following me.

It's Amazing

We are now finished with our decorating for the holiday. There are little Christmas trees with little ornaments everywhere you look; two in the kitchen, five on Gregory's table, one in the guest bathroom, one in the master bathroom, and one in our bedroom.

There are large, heavy, mercury glass ornaments of various sizes hanging across the sprinkler system pipe that crosses the living room: shades of blue, green, red, orange to yellow, purple, silver and white.

Three dozen glass ball ornaments are suspended in a spiral from the HVAC duct down the entry hall. They are attached via magnets, attached to springs, attached to alligator clips attached to the balls. The great thing is that the ornaments are all off color, none Christmassy: chartreuse, lime, lilac, purple, pink, black, white, turquoise, etc.

The mistletoe is hanging at the end of the hall suspended below a metal Star with a picture of Santa painted on it. Kiss, kiss, kiss.

A freshly baked ginger bread house sits on the coffee table. It is decorated with a meringue cookie roof, multi-colored bubble gum ridge pole, red and green candy corn fence, spearmint leaf bushes, frosting decorated windows and doors, a candy cane wreath, and a chocolate flavored stones making a cobble sidewalk.

Metallic colored metal words: joy, believe, peace, love, faith, and hope, dangle from magnets on the furnace vent in the hall.

A plastic Santa glows in the guest bath, a plastic snowman lights up the master bath, and a ceramic Christmas tree with plastic beads glows at the end of the kitchen counter.

Three sizes of white lights are wrapped around the balcony railing and plastic candy canes are hung with care along the length of the balcony. A live tree, three feet high sits in the middle with its white lights glowing softly.

In the past, Gregory and I decorated the house together. Now-a-days I do it by myself and he helps when he can. Mostly Gregory sits and watches and takes great joy in seeing the "things" of our holiday get unwrapped and put into place.

A stack of presents gayly wrapped sit on top of my computer console. As usual I have bought some wonderful gifts for Gregory and I have bought some wonderful gifts for me from him. I usually get what I want for Christmas!

Throughout this process, I was very aware of an amazing thing. I was and am feeling blessed, happy, content, and joyful. Alzheimer's is besides the point. To end this BLOG, I'll repeat the words I look at in the hall each night before I go to bed: joy, believe, peace, love, faith, and hope. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Let's Try This Again

"Every Day Is A New Day" may sound trite but it is an operative slogan for me. Very often, after Gregory and I have had a difficult exchange, or hour, or day … in the next exchange, or hour, or day things will seem back to normal. Each morning I awake refreshed and  hopeful and usually the day goes well … until the next difficult exchange, or hour, or day.

An Observation

Yesterday, I drove to The Lyric Opera of Chicago for a Carmen rehearsal. I spent my time in the car on the phone with my good friend John H. We talked about many things and when the topic of our conversation turned to Gregory, John made an excellent observation about why Gregory may be able to deal so successfully with having Alzheimer's Disease.

For the most part Gregory continues to deal successfully with the slow loss of his mental abilities. The other day he mentioned that he missed playing the piano but was grateful for all the wonderful music we could listen to on our audio system. He gets a little frustrated when he cannot pull the words he needs to express an idea or ask a question but only a little. When asked how he is doing with the Alzheimer's, he will respond, "It is what it is."

John observed that Gregory has always been a problem solver. He does not get emotionally involved with the negativity or seeming impossibility of problems but instead always works optimistically, one piece at a time, not panicking, knowing that the difficult situation will be resolved.

He has always had confidence in himself and his ability to help himself, his loved ones, (and clients when the firm was still open) work through problems. Rather than spending any time placing blame or rehashing exactly why something has happened, he puts his energies and focus into doing what needs to be done to move forward towards a solution.

Perhaps his brain is on auto-pilot when it comes to dealing with his own difficulties and losses for he continues to enjoy his days, love the people around him, and do the best he can do with "what is."